And we are back! The only kyujo absence from the top division is Meisei, who had surgery on a herniated disc in his back October 17. The JSA says he’ll be back next basho, and he will fall into Juryo from the rank of Maegashira 18. Best of wishes to him.
MATCH OF THE DAY: Fujinokawa–my joy at this cannot be expressed–pulled a flawless yoritaoshi, sending Roga straight to the clay. It was an extremely quick match where little Fujinokawa barreled into Roga and knocked him right out. Fujinokawa held on for dear life and Roga tumbled onto the floor as Fujinokawa got up and fixed his hair. What a great match! Fuji still has the remnants of a black eye and a little cut on his right cheek, but that didn’t stop him today. He will take on Gonoyama tomorrow.
KIMARITE OF THE DAY: An incredible size difference was seen today between Kinbozan and Midorifuji, the former being one of the heaviest and the tallest in the division, and the other being the smallest. They had a long match that ended in an uncharacteristically clean uwatenage from Kinbozan–not exactly the rarest kimarite, but bonus points for effort. He fights pusher-thruster extraordinaire Abi tomorrow.
PINK MAWASHI DAY ONE: Tamawashi is such a likeable rikishi, but it’s impossible to root against Ura. He was grounded today and went straight to business, which he did a little bit in September as well–basic, solid sumo. I like seeing him prove his reliability and remind us all that he’s a great wrestler even without the twirling and leaping. We will always take the oshidashi, Ura! His opponent tomorrow is ex-Komusubi Oshoma.
OVERALL SUMMARY: The sole debutant, Oshoumi, got a quick win against Shonannoumi with a simple yorikiri. Shishi, notably, sported a new black mawashi for his loss against Daieisho. I preferred the pale blue, but I did love Asakoryu’s swap from his usual black to a very pretty dark red. Takayasu put up a good fight against Onosato, but was overpowered by the Yokozuna, who scored his first victory, unlike Hoshoryu… which was an excellent match. Hakuoho rammed straight into the young Yokozuna, who reached for the belt and pulling the larger rikishi close, but Hakuoho won the match through a dead body rule and Hoshoryu did not look happy. Wounded Daieisho and Disaster Basho Award winner Gonoyama, notably, got their wins today.
The biggest surprise today was, of course, Hakuoho’s kinboshi. Poor Hoshoryu didn’t seem to be loving the lack of mono-ii, and it does call into question exactly what the dead body rule entails. My interpretation is that as Hoshoryu was still in the air and Hakuoho’s sumo got him there, Hakuoho won even though he didn’t touch down yet. Or it could be that the young Japanese rikishi fighting the main rival of the best Japanese rikishi will always win. But I would like to believe the latter isn’t true, and so: good work today, Hakuoho! And we’ll see if Hoshoryu turns it around tomorrow.
Well, it was a great day of sumo, and of course, a Day One win for every Kise-beya rikisihi, which is all we can ask for. There’s nothing quite like that Shonichi feeling!
Today’s fun fact is that the brothers Wakamotoharu and Wakatakakage, along with the brothers Asakoryu and Asasuiryu, now sport matching mawashi-ken. The Waka brothers have an almost-matching dark blue pair, while the Asa brothers share a sort of color-inverted pair of red and green mawashi-ken. The Waka brothers’ eldest brother down in Makushita, Wakatakamoto, doesn’t wear a mawashi-ken, so he doesn’t get to match. This picture shows the three Onami brothers when they were younger because I couldn’t get a good image of their mawashi-ken!
